1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to scuba diving equipment and particularly to an improved buoyancy compensator.
2. Brief Description of the Background Art
The buoyancy compensator is an essential article of scuba diving equipment, allowing the scuba diver to maintain neutral buoyancy underwater, to achieve a feeling of freedom and to permit exact control over the diver's position in the water. One widely utilized buoyancy compensator, sometimes called "a horse collar B.C. vest," includes a vest portion and a connected neck encircling portion, both of which are air inflatable. The user inflates the buoyancy compensator through a flexible air inflation hose, connected to the front of the vest, using a valved mouthpiece. The mouthpiece valve may be operated to permit oral or power inflation of the buoyancy compensator.
While currently marketed buoyancy compensators are capable of extremely safe and efficient operation, they suffer from certain deficiencies. Particularly, pockets of air commonly collect in the region behind the user's neck or generally in the back regions of the vest. The air pockets often are difficult to discover, since they are not visible to the user, and thus a user may begin his or her ascent to the surface without realizing that a relatively large quantity of air is still held within the buoyancy compensator. This presents a safety hazard since as the diver ascends the air expands at a rate that could produce an uncontrolled ascent potentially causing the "bends." The diver normally attempts to prevent such an occurrence by reaching around and squeezing any air out of the neck or back portion and by forcefully pulling the inflation hose upwardly and away in order to encourage all the air to escape. However, both of these techniques are not only awkward but they are not always effective. In addition the presence of such an air pocket may interfere with the diver's ability to precisely control his or her buoyancy. Thus, current diving equipment provides no automatic means for exhausting any such air pocket and no mechanism for controlling the effects of these air pockets.